After garnering huge praise for his 2023 legal drama Sirf Ek Bandaa Kaafi Hai — front lined by Manoj Bajpayee — that became a rare film which found a release in movie theatres after a massively successful run on OTT, director Suparn S. Varma is back with another courtroom drama that is drawn from real life.
Haq, releasing in cinemas on November 7, focuses on the Mohd. Ahmed Khan vs Shah Bano Begum case, a landmark decision of the Supreme Court that gave Muslim women the right to seek maintenance after divorce under Section 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code. Forty years after the case, Yami Gautam Dhar slips into the part of Shah Bano (named Shazia Bano in the film), with Emraan Hashmi playing her former husband as well as court adversary. t2 chatted with Suparn to know more.
What prompted you to bring the Mohd. Ahmed Khan vs Shah Bano Begum case to the screen four decades after it happened?
All the equity that I created making Sirf Ek Bandaa Kaafi Hai, I have used it to make Haq in the way it deserves to be made. It is a very, very powerful subject and a very important topic. It is one of the most important judgments passed by the Supreme Court in this country, and one which affects us even now. It is a story of women’s empowerment in a way that is still relevant.
In fact, the more things change, the more they remain the same. Nothing has really changed in the last 40 years. This is a story whose time has come and one which needed to be told correctly. It needed to be told in a way that makes our audiences discuss, feel and open their minds to a lot of things that we are not aware of or that we tend to judge or something that we haven’t even thought about.
From whatever you have gauged so far, what are the audience’s expectations from Haq?
The audience has had a very emotional response to whatever we have put out related to the film so far. What has intrigued viewers is that the film seems hard-hitting. They also like the fact that it seems to be extremely balanced and not provocative; it is very nuanced, which, I think, surprised many people because there was a lot of worry otherwise.
A lot of my friends have called me to say that after a long time, we seem to have a Hindi film where we (the Muslim community) are not (Allaudin) Khilji or any other villain. In Haq, we are being seen as characters and a community that lives and breathes the same emotions as everyone else. All sections of society, when they watch it, will realise that this is such an Indian story. It deals with a judgment which is among one of the first things taught in law schools today.
What was the biggest challenge in telling a story like this in today’s times where outrage is just a social media post away?
Honestly, I was more scared when I started out on the journey of Haq than when I made Sirf Ek Bandaa Kaafi Hai. I realised that walking the path of truth is tough, but once you start walking it, people join and you become stronger. Honesty always opens a lot of hearts and doors.
We took two years to research the film. We spent time with legal experts, community experts and experts of the Quran before we started writing the film, creating our characters and this world. In doing so, we were not only inspired by Shah Bano, but also by Fuzlunbi, Bai Tahira and all those women who were fighting the same fight during that time. That helped bring our world and our characters to life in the best way possible with the utmost honesty that we wanted.
The biggest challenge for us was writing the last 20 minutes of the film. It is Emraan (Hashmi) and Yami’s (Gautam Dhar) characters’ summation of the film... everything comes down to those 20 minutes. It took us six months to write just that part and it was a huge challenge because if we faltered even a bit, if there was a single false note, then the entire symphony created till then would come crashing down. We couldn’t have a single wrong emotional or legal note... it had to land perfectly. It was a very big responsibility because you can’t bring it to the brink and then squander it. The writer, Reshu Nath, and I worked very hard to reach there, and also went back and forth with Emraan and Yami. They would act out various drafts and send them to me in terms of how it sounded and then we would tweak it, depending on whether it was sounding true or not and whether it was landing well or not.
This story, of course, is now more relevant than ever before...
It is. Women are still living in a man’s world. They face the same glass ceilings and the same biases, at work or at home. Most men have the same attitude towards women — whether it is their jobs, their personal needs or their physical health needs. People belonging to a certain section of society might be more aware and talk more about it, but in terms of change, I would say maybe five per cent or 10 per cent of the populace is doing it; the rest still has a long way to go.
Women are still the marginalised section of society in every possible way across the world. They have to fight for every ounce of their space under the sun. If a woman is assaulted, the first question she is asked is what was she wearing; a man being shirtless is considered cool. Things haven’t changed for women in the way they should have, and in many cases, matters have become worse. I am sure your struggles mirror the same as your mother’s and her mother’s and her mother’s. Maybe it has got better by a fraction of a degree, but it will still be the same on the whole.
You have two extremely competent lead actors in the form of Emraan and Yami. What do they bring to their roles which is unique to them?
Yami is very dedicated and she surrendered herself to the character, right from creating it from scratch. The film is set in a different time and she sank completely into that character. Shah Bano wasn’t very educated and Yami imbibed her manner of speech. She also had to learn Arabic to quote the Quran. I tend to shoot master shots and we did a lot of single takes. She landed it emotionally, beat for beat, every time. She totally became the character, so much so, that it was only on the last day of shoot when we were about to wrap up, that I finally saw Yami Gautam emerge from within her after 32 days of shoot.
Emraan Hashmi is one of the most amazing actors we have, and someone who has been underutilised for a large part of his career. He is a hugely underrated actor. He has so much emotional depth. He had to work hard on normalising his character or it would have gone completely negative. It was a big challenge but he did it in a way that made it look easy. I could clearly see the craft that he brought to it to make it work.
For a very long time, courtroom dramas in Bollywood have played out in a melodramatic manner. After directing Sirf Ek Bandaa Kaafi Hai and now Haq, have you figured out a way to keep courtroom scenes real and yet engaging and even entertaining to some extent?
I am learning every single day. But I think what works is basing the heft of the argument on wordplay, on legality, on knowledge and on depth of information, and ultimately taking all of that and crafting the emotional journey of the characters. To reach a court is a whole emotional journey in itself. Nobody wants to do it... court kachheri as they call it. This particular case lasted 11 years. Once you get into a legal journey, you have to remain invested in it. The journey before that investment happens is a journey in itself. So how do you reach that point — that point of no return as Danish Husain, who plays Shazia Bano’s father, tells her in the film. To reach that point in the film is a journey of the minds and the hearts of the characters on both sides. It was a great space for me to discover as a filmmaker. I knew that if I could make the audience invest in the journey of what happens before the court proceedings start, then they would remain with the film even after.
As a filmmaker, I don’t like indulging in binaries. My idea is to give the viewer an understanding of both sides of an argument. If I have to break it down simply, for me, a courtroom drama shouldn’t be boring but also not indulgent. I try and be true to the story, to the characters and have fun with it too.
Which is your favourite courtroom drama in Indian cinema?
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